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The Lawrie dilemma

The Brett Lawrie watch continues this week with lots of rumours that the young third baseman could make his Major League debut as early as Friday in Baltimore.

There no longer appears to be any doubt that Lawrie is ready to make the jump to Toronto. He went 1-for-3 with an RBI single for Triple-A Las Vegas on Tuesday afternoon and is now batting .342 (13-for-38) in his past 10 games.

Lawrie also has two home runs, seven RBIs, three doubles and eight walks over that same span. The native of Langley, British Columbia, appears to have regained the form he had before fracturing his left hand in a game on May 31.

“First of all, the fact that he’s back playing, yeah that’s great,” Blue Jays manager John Farrell said. “We haven’t changed off of our goal of getting him at-bats, games played, prior to September.

“Whether that happens this weekend or when we get off the road, whenever that might be, we’re all looking forward to getting him inserted in with this young group but we haven’t pin pointed an exact day.”

His imminent promotion does present a few problems to the Blue Jays. The organization — and the fan base — are eager to see what Lawrie can do on the main stage but how soon he can be inserted into the lineup remains a bit of a question mark.

Lawrie is the future starting third baseman — that much is clear. His arrival will push Jose Bautista back to right field and would likely relegate Eric Thames to designated hitter.

The problem is that the Blue Jays are currently getting a lot of production out of Edwin Encarnacion in the DH slot. The 28-year-old is coming off arguably his most successful month with the organization after hitting .313 (30-for-96) with four home runs, 14 RBIs and nine doubles in 25 games.

Under normal circumstances, those numbers wouldn’t even come close to potentially losing a starting job. But, then again, these aren’t normal circumstances.

Thames has played well this season (.285, five home runs, 22 RBIs) and deserves every day at-bats while the club continues to monitor whether the California native fits into their long-term plans.

Travis Snider has begun to struggle after a hot streak at the plate following his promotion to the Majors. The 23-year-old hasn’t even been in Toronto for a month, though, and he also needs regular playing time to work through any problems he may be experiencing.

That leaves Encarnacion as the odd-man out even with the impressive numbers in July. The easy solution would be to find a contending team interested in adding another bat to its lineup. But I think it’s safe to assume general manager Alex Anthopoulos explored those scenarios before the Non-Waiver trade deadline.

I originally thought Pittsburgh would be an ideal fit. That was before the Pirates added Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick on July 31st — essentially taking them out of the running. The Indians are another team that could potentially use another player who has the ability to start at 1B/3B but their DH spot is locked down by Travis Hafner.

“The most important point here is that we’re getting to the point with our roster that performance, and how you go out and play, and what you do inbetween the lines directly impacts that decision,” Farrell said when asked about the competition for playing time.

“You’d hope to go out and maintain the focus on what you can control and that’s every at-bat and every play and let that work speak and affect the decision.”

It’s possible a team steps up before the end of the month and makes a play for Encarnacion but what do the Blue Jays do in the meantime?

Keep Lawrie in the Minor Leagues where he doesn’t have anything left to prove? Bench Encarnacion even though he is hitting as well as anyone on the team? Bench or send down Eric Thames even though he has been out hitting Snider? Send down Snider for a second time even though he has only been in the Majors for less than a month?

Personally, I think the only realistic scenario is benching Encarnacion and trying to find opportunities to insert him into the lineup against left-handed pitching until/if a deal can be worked out with another team.

That may cause some concern to Anthopoulos, though, because Encarnacion was guaranteed every day at-bats with the organization when he signed during the off-season and the Toronto GM does not like to break his word.

Last year, there was lots of talk about why John Buck was playing over rookie J.P. Arencibia. During an off-season event with season-ticket holders, Anthopoulos explained a similar promise was made to Buck and by honouring his word it improves the Blue Jays reputuation around the league with agents. It’s possible the club could face a similar problem this year.

In the meantime, Lawrie and his .352 average with 18 home runs and 61 RBIs sits and waits for the next move.

Here are some leftovers from today’s media scrum with Farrell:

On competing with Rays for third place:

“We set out in Spring Training to build on the momentum from a year ago. We didn’t pinpoint a spot in the standings as a significance or something that would reflect that. But certainly this is a series that we come in knowing that they’re the next team ahead of us and I think it would be a very good step forward not only to play well in this series but in the final two months of the season.”

On Jesse Litsch working out of the bullpen:

“I think right now we want to take a good long look at the role he is in currently. To take advantage of his weapons against right-handed hitters that he has been very successful at, these two months will give us a more clear picture at where he’s best suited.”

On balance of Blue Jays new lineup:

“When you go up against a lineup that has the ability to counter balance a right-handed starter with a number of left-handers it puts a different stress level on the guy on the mound.

“I think the more you can get away from that run of one-sidedness with a lineup when you force that pitcher to go back and forth with their approach you have the potential of more mistakes being made.

“Ideally, you throw that in with some aggressiveness on the basepaths, different things for a pitcher to contend with, that’s all part of the diversity we’d hope to accomplish.”

On Brett Lawrie:

“When he comes he’s coming to play third base. That hasn’t changed and when he comes, Jose is going back to right field. Now, that creates a little bit of a flood in the outfield. When that decision is made to bring him, we’ve got to make a counter move to free that spot up.”

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2 Comments

wouldn’t the smart solution for the blue jays be to insert lawrie at 2nd base his original position and hill be the odd man out instead of encarcion.leaving bautista at 3rd and not bumping thames out of the outfield. hill has had a year and 2/3 to try and get his batting back over 240 with little or no glimpses of his one good year.

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